Archive for December, 1999

Among Finnish writers of the younger generation, Jyrki Kiiskinen (born 1963) has wasted no time becoming a prominent figure, both admired and disparaged. While his entry in the new three-volume literary history of Finland is allotted as much space as one of our classics, it does not grant him the status of an innovator. Reviewing his new book of poems, Kun elän (‘As I live’, 1999), for my newspaper, I proposed that it introduces, for the first time in Finnish poetry, the automobile as a metaphor for our entire motorised life style. The president of the Finnish Writers’ Union, poet Jarkko Laine, responded by presenting a list of all the Cadillacs, Renaults and Volvos that can be glimpsed in the pages of Finnish poetry books. More…

The composition of Raija Siekkinen’s short stories is almost always the same: a woman, a man, slowly developing understanding or alienation, a resolution. In her new, book-length story, Se tapahtui täällä (‘It happened here’), the motivating events take place before the narrative begins, and the journey is toward emergence from grief.

‘One must listen to one’s own voice, and cultivate it. I am no moralist, except in the relation to myself. The persona and voice of the writer must be on the same lines, otherwise one cannot be honest, and writes only for entertainment. One has to live with what one writes,’ says Raija Siekkinen, rolling a cigarette at home in the small coastal town of Kotka, a 120 kilometres from Helsinki, near the church, in her picturesque wooden house. She says she was sensitive and shy as a child, but somehow realised that she had to defend her own words and manner. ‘And in literature honesty is one of the most essential things.’ More…

She thought of the period between two loves as a spacious room, full of light, outside whose windows the seasons change unhurriedly. On the walls are reflections of the morning light. There is the sound of piano music; and the number of rooms grows. Somewhere, far away, a young girl, dressed in white, is at the piano; the wind fans the curtains. Slow awakening, the soft rocking of time, the sound of bare feet on a wooden floor. In the air there is the scent of flowers, apples, and the gentle morning breeze, and perfume, and the scent of clean, ironed clothes and furniture wax. The afternoon shadows are long and cool; the pages of a book rustle slowly. Now the music pauses.

Jyrki Vainonen mixes reality with miracles: in his story ‘The pearl’ the central character is a living model in a department store. Introduction by Pekka Tarkka

The setting of Jyrki Vainonen’s short story ‘Helmi’ (‘The Pearl’) reminds me of the Finnish architect Sigurd Frosterus, who lived at the beginning of the 20th century. He wrote a brilliant essay on the Wertheim department store in Berlin, which he saw as a work of art of the age of capitalism, similar to the baths for Romans or the cathedral for the people of the mediaeval period. He realised his vision by designing a handsome building, the Stockmann department store, which has been a much-loved temple of goods for Helsinki people for 70 years. More…

My name is Jan Stabulas. I am one of the quietest and inconspicuous workers in our department store, this giant ant-heap swarming with people. No one really pays any attention to me, although I am on show all the time. My job is quite simple: to stand in the menswear department, dressed in fashionable clothes. Now that doesn’t take much, I have heard it said. Well, try it yourself. Try standing for ten hours, without moving, in an awkward, even an unnatural, position, wishing that the air conditioning would work when it was hot, or that it would be switched off when you can feel the draught cutting you to the marrow. Think how the customers stare at you as they pass by, like an object which they cannot buy, and consider your words once more. More…

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